After a rambunctious (and stressful) couple of weeks, I’m finally back in Tokyo and have settled back into my blogging seat. Lizzi is away for the magical Halloween Phish event, so it’s just Hurley and me for the next week or so. By the way, Phish actually does a cool thing for its Halloween shows, when the band covers an entire album of its choosing. If you visit its website, you’ll see a list of dozens of albums that have been whittled down one by one over the past several weeks. As of today, there are only a few left standing, including (among others): Michael Jackson’s Thriller (a timely tribute, perhaps?), Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Led Zeppelin’s self-entitled debut album, The Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Radiohead’s Kid A, Springsteen’s Born To Run, Prince’s Purple Rain, and Elton John’s Yellowbrick Road. Should be a fun time.
During my eight hours or so of traveling yesterday, I got to catch up on some reading and viewing entertainment:
- Caught up on some episodes of Community on NBC. Great show. Here’s a fun clip to entice you.
- Watched Adventureland. It stars, among others, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, and it was directed by Greg Mottola, whose previous credits include Superbad and several episodes of Arrested Development and Undeclared. This is a very good movie that I highly recommend. It’s shameful that this hasn’t gotten more credit (only grossed $16 million at the domestic box office) and reviews appear mixed. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters were great and the writing was solid, melding witty commentary with a heartfelt coming-of-age story (“Your name is James….am I saying that right?….James?” delivered with perfection by Hader). Plus, the music was great, even the constant annoyance of Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus”.
- Caught some episodes of this season’s Mad Men. This show could well go down as one of the finest shows in television history. I’m not kidding. I haven’t seen a show this well done since HBO’s The Wire.
- I listened to some George Carlin and Bill Hicks stand-up comedy routines. I love these guys. Though Hicks goes off the deep-end with his conspiratorial nonsense, he generally has some good scathing commentary, something complemented very well with Carlin. Denis Leary is in the same vein as these guys and I like him as well, though I know he took some flack for apparently stealing some material from Hicks. Nonetheless, I love the tone, subject matter, delivery, etc. Really good stuff for the less squeamish among us.
- Lizzi got me an Amazon Kindle DX. It’s the super-sized one that makes it easier to download newspapers and textbooks (good for me with school). One of the great things about this little device is not only the ability to download a ton of books whenever I want, but I can store PDF files on it. This means I can download class notes and not have to lug them around with me everywhere (which is a huge weight relief for someone on the road). Plus, it means I can simply save interesting articles online in PDF form and then read them later on my Kindle. This saves my eyes from the strain of the backlight and makes it cheaper for me to enjoy mags like The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, etc.
- Among the articles I read during the flight was Malcolm Gladwell’s newest piece, which attempted to draw a parallel between our society’s obsession with American football and the disgusting “sport” of dogfighting. While I tend to like Gladwell’s work and often can find little with which to take issue, I think he’s way off base with this one. He’s basically saying that we, the viewing public, don’t care about the fact that NFL players put themselves at physical risk for the benefit of sport, incurring harm that sometimes results in brain impairment that takes the form of dementia or worse. Obviously, this is a sad reality for anyone unfortunate enough to have to face it. However, fans of dogfighting are in a league of evil all their own. I’d be happy if each one of those morons were taken to a field somewhere and forced to fight each other for survival; this would be a justice unlike any other. But there are several huge differences between the “sports”. For one, NFL players actually have a choice of playing the sport whereas those poor dogs are forced to kill or be killed. Oh yeah, that’s another difference – the sport of football does not celebrate the breaking of bones, drawing of blood or the event of death. Rather, such events are met with gasps of horror and wishes for speedy recoveries. And NFL players get paid millions of dollars to put themselves in harm’s way. Those poor dogs live miserable existences and die under the worst of circumstances. Were Gladwell to use the sport of ultimate fighting instead of football, I might at least partially see his point. But the NFL? In the words of Gob Bluth, come on!
- I also read a piece about General Stanley McChrystal in the NY Times Magazine written by Dexter Filkins, whose book about Iraq and Afghanistan I quite enjoyed (The Forever War). It’s a good, interesting piece delivered in very digestible form, a Filkins hallmark. It helps one appreciate how hopeless our attempts over there are (if you read bewteen the lines); plus, I love reading about people like McChrystal, guys so intense and focused in their calling that you’d think they were born for exactly what they do (e.g. he sleeps five hours a night, runs 8-12 miles per day, etc.).
- Finally, I read Bill Simmons’ NBA season preview, which was great, as always. The guy knows his sports and he particularly excels at basketball. He’s jokingly lobbied for a GM position in the NBA before, but I’m beginning to think that someone should take him seriously. Not only would he bring with him millions of dedicated readers but he’d also make for a mighty fine GM. The dude knows his stuff and, most importantly, knows when to call bullshit. That’s a talent most modern-day GM’s seem to lack. Were he to take over an NBA team, I’d be first in line to predict that team’s rise to the top.
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